Walking through the Meadows, on the south side of Melville Drive heading west, didn't really notice a cyclist going past me, then definitely noticed a convoy of 5 or 6 police motorbikers, and really definitely noticed the front one slowing down and gesturing very angrily at the (unlit) cyclist. I was about 20 yards away and had my mp3 player in so couldn't hear exactly what he was saying, but could hear that he was yelling something at her. I assume it was about her having no back light, or that her back light (if she had one) was obscured by her jacket. He didn't stop, or make her stop, and she carried on her way after they'd all gone, but it looked like she was getting quite a telling-off.

Logged

My feminist marxist dialectic brings all the boys to the yard.

Fluffy

And so she should, it really annoys me when I see other cyclists with no lights and dark clothing at night. I have a super bright headlight and a very bright rear, I also wear a reflective yellow tabard. If we can make the effort to be seen so can others.

I often see the no light cyclist jumping red lights while multi-tasking by making a phone call now I used totell them that they should get some lights, but they were always to busy talking to reply so I gave up.

There are opposing views on use or not of mp3 players while riding, I tend not to most of the time but am not against it. In this particular case the debate is not relevant anyway as Kirst noted she was walking.

I think we've done this discussion. My hearing's a bit impaired, so I don't use an MP3. Others might like to, but their hearing may be better than mine even with the earphones in. We're different, and it's OK to disagree. I don't like pedestrians wandering into the road without looking, but they may have done that anyway, even if they were not distracted by music/phone conversation/whatever.

Virtually no motorists can hear what is going on outside, even if they don't use ICE.

If I were to wear headphones, as odd as it may seem, I'd be most likely to wear them in a busy urban situation where the background din hides a lot of the detail of what is going on, but for the kind of open road cycling I do you'd never catch me being so daft as to wear headphones. My hearing has alerted me to recklessly driven vehicles on a number of occasions and enabled me to take evasive or assertive actions.

It seems rather that you yourself don't trust your observation and know it's not good enough, which is why you feel the need to rely on your hearing.

So you can see round corners can you? I can't, but I can hear round them and if I hear a car approaching at speed on a corner that I am already half round it let's me know that I might have to hit the curb pronto.

Also, you can see the car behind you but you can't see a car behind that that may be approaching at speed... You can certainly hear it. Engine tone tells you a lot about the attitude of the driver, these are things you can't always see.

Besides, your comment about using ears because you aren't looking well enough is pretty silly. If you have two senses then use them both. Perhaps if you rode a little more intelligently you wouldn't need to keep posting your silly little videos